Aluminum metal is an energy-dense (e.g., greater than 80 MJ/L) fuel with the potential to enhance a variety of common systems. Because aluminum can oxidize in water, it is especially promising as a power source for undersea devices, which are severely limited by the low energy density of conventional anaerobic energy storage media (e.g., less than 1 MJ/L for Li-ion batteries). However, while recent advancements in the scalable de-passivation of aluminum have eliminated some barriers to effective energy storage in aluminum, efficient energy conversion from the heat of reaction 2Al+6H2O→3H2+2Al(OH)3+Q remains elusive. This difficulty is mainly attributable to the slow kinetics of the reaction, which are not conducive to maintenance of the steep temperature gradient required for efficient thermal energy conversion. In electrochemical Al-based devices, the continuous loss of some of the aluminum anode due to parasitic corrosion reduces the energy density of the cell and shortens the self-discharge time of the system. Thus, previous attempts to commercialize Al-air and Al-water fuel cells have failed, largely due to the high anodic overpotentials and parasitic anodic corrosion that reduces discharge efficiencies to ˜10-50 percent.